Invasion of the Dinosaurs Part Four

The one where the Doctor discovers, then loses, a secret underground bunker...

The Doctor seems to do a lot, but achieve very little, in this episode. Armed with his new mobile time displacement detector, he hops into his "new car", which has to be one of the most ridiculous things ever to appear in the programme. Never explicitly named on screen, but known off-screen as both the Alien and the Whomobile, this UFO-inspired vehicle comes out of absolutely nowhere, for no reason. It would be a fabulous merchandising opportunity for the show, but as a piece of hardware, it's just ridiculous. It smacks of Jon Pertwee wanting to be James Bond, and although 007's famous Lotus Esprit was a few years away yet, it's from the same ideas bank as all those other TV show toys that hit the market in the 1970s, like Scooby Doo's Mystery Machine and the Six Million Dollar Man's Bionic Mission Vehicle.

The Whomobile was only ever seen in a couple of episodes of Season 11, but also featured in the 2013 comic strip In with the Tide. I'm very glad it didn't hang about once Tom Baker came along, it's just really tacky and gimmicky.

The Doctor tracks the time traces to a London Underground station, and manages to find a secret lift down to the secret bunker hidden inside a mop cupboard! I love this, again it's very James Bond, but in the right way, unlike that Whomobile thing.

Sadly, the Doctor's discovery of the bunker amounts to nothing as he is herded along corridors by roller-shutters closing behind or in front of him, eventually pushing him back into the lift and up to the surface. And for once, that old cliche about wobbly sets in Doctor Who is absolutely true, because they wobble like jelly when the shutters come down!

Butler and Whitaker - two characters with barely a personality to rub between them - then transport a pterosaur from the Triassic to 1970s London to try and kill the Doctor (I like how they seem to have CCTV in prehistoric times). One thing they don't count on, however, is the Doctor's mop skills, which he uses to fend off the squawking offender before making his getaway. Why they don't just put a bullet in him is beyond me. It's a much more efficient way to get rid of your enemy than using the energy it takes to transport a prehistoric monster forwards in time to bite him to death.

The Doctor then struggles to prove to the military that the bunker exists. Grover does his bit by showing the Brigadier the file which says it was never built, and when the Doctor and Brigadier return to the Underground station, the mop cupboard is just a mop cupboard again.

The final humiliation comes when Whitaker makes a phone call to the Doctor to ask to meet him at the hangar, claiming to have escaped his Operation Golden Age captors. Why doesn't the Doctor question how Whitaker knows who he is, or how to contact him? Anyway, the Doctor goes to the hangar, only to be set up royally by being caught "in the act" with a live stegosaurus and a time displacement device.

While all this nonsense is going on, Sarah is in space on her way to New Earth (no, not that one). What puzzles me is the time differential in the narrative here. If Sarah really has been travelling in space for three months, why is everything back on Earth still happening as it was before? Has Hulke got two time-streams going on here: the Doctor on contemporary Earth, and Sarah in space three months into the future? It seems unlikely...

Anyway, Sarah's opinionated presence has caused ructions among the Elders, the three humans who have been looking after the 200 others in suspended animation for the last three months (why do they need to go into suspended animation if the journey only takes three months?). The Elders are made up of Edith Artois Lady Cullingford, a former politician who campaigned against river pollution; Nigel Castle, a presumably eco-campaigning novelist; and John Crichton (not the one from Farscape), an athlete who jumped 2.362 metres at the last Olympics, and dresses to the right. Assuming Sarah means high jump, not long jump ('cos that jump would be really rubbish!), this means John was a better athlete than anybody in the real world, where at the time this story was made, the world record for high jump was only 2.30 metres. The German Gerd Wessig jumped 2.36 metres at the 1980 Olympics, while today the record stands at 2.45 metres - unbeaten since 1993!

Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked by sport here, which is most unlike me. Notice how the Elders have altered their identities to adopt Biblical names. Lady Cullingford is now Ruth, Nigel is now Adam, and John is now Mark (even though John is a Biblical name too!).

The Elders tell Sarah that they are about to touch down on New Earth, a planet "still pure, undefiled by the evil of man's technology". When Sarah explains that she doesn't want to be there, and certainly doesn't agree with their philosophy, she is sent to be re-educated in the "reminder room", where she's played looping video footage of world pollution and man's folly against nature. All very Nineteen Eighty-Four! Ruth says that if Sarah fails to respond to re-education, she will have to be "destroyed". What kind of new society is this that Operation Golden Age is advocating?!

By the way... that secret bunker is designed to confuse. If you look at the map shown on screen, it seems the signs send people in completely the wrong direction. The sign says to go left (as the Doctor looks at it - see pic above) for the reactor room and communications room, but the comms room is actually to the right. And the sign says to go right to the cabinet room, sleeping quarters and sick bay, but it's much quicker to go left to the cabinet room and sick bay!

First broadcast: February 2nd, 1974

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: I like the idea of a secret elevator in a mop cupboard on the London Underground!
The Bad: The Whomobile is a tacky addition to the Doctor's repertoire. I really don't approve.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆

"Now listen to me" tally: 30
Neck-rub tally: 15 - the Doctor rubs his neck anxiously when faced with the inevitability of returning to the mop cupboard lift.

NEXT TIME: Part Five...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Part One; Part Two; Part Three; Part Five; Part Six

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site: http://doctorwhocastandcrew.blogspot.com/2014/06/invasion-of-dinosaurs.html

Invasion of the Dinosaurs is available on BBC DVD as part of the UNIT Files box set. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-U-N-I-T-Invasion-Dinosaurs/dp/B006H4R8W6